St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-11-12


of the scorpion, a creature which is
chiefly celebrated for its deadly sting.
But. after all, these symbols are expressive
of the way nation feels toward nation.
DiscOrd wide as the continent and
bridging the seas. ! suppose you have
noticed how warmly in love dry
goods stores are with other dry
goods stores and how highly grocery
men think of the sugars of the grocery
men on the same block. And III what
eulogistic way allopathic and hompopa-
thic doctors speak of each other, and how
ministers will sometimes put ministers
on that beautiful cooking instrument
which the English call spit, an iron
roller with spikes on it, and turned by a
crank before a hot fire, and then II the
minister being roasted cries out against
it, the men who are turning him say:
Hush. brother! we are turning tins
spit for the glory of God and the good
of your soul, and you must be quiet While
we close the service with;
".Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts i'll Christian love
The earth is diametered and circum-
ferenced with discord, and the music
that was rendered at the laying of the
worlds cornerstone, when the morning
stars sang together, is not heard now;
and though here and there, from this
and that part of society, and from this
and that part of the earth, there comes
up thrilling solo of love, or MARBLE of
worship, or a sweet duet of patience, they
are drowned out by disCOrd that shakes
the earth.
Paul says: THE whole creation groan-
eth and while the nightingale, and the
woodark, and the canary, and the
plover sometimes sing so sweetly that
their notes have been written out in mu-
steal notation, and it is found that the
cuckoo sings in the key of d, and that
the cormorant is a basso in the winged
choir, yet sportsman's gun and the au-
tumnal blast often leave them rutfled and
bleeding, or dead in meadow or forest.
Paul was right, for the groan in nature
browns out the prima-donnas of the sky
Tartini, the great musical composer,
dreamed one night that he made a con-
tract with Satan the latter to be ever in
the composers service. But one night
he handed to Satan violin, on which
Diabolus played such sweet music that
the composer was awakened by the emo
| ton and tried to reproduce the sounds,
and therefrom was written Tartini's most
| famous piece, entitled the Devils So
nata," a dream ingenious but faulty, for
| all melody descends from Heaven, and
only discords ascend from hell. All
hatreds, feuds, controversies, backbitings
and revenges are the devils sonata, are
diabolic fugue are demoniac phantasy,
are grand march of doom, are allegro of
perdition.
But if in this world things in general
are out of tune to our frail ear how
much more so to ears angelic and deitiC !.
1t takes skilled artist fully to appre-
ciate disagreement of sound. Many have
no capacity to detect a defect of musical
execution, and, though there were in one
| bar as many offenses against harmony as
| could crowd in between the lower + of
the bass and the higher of the soprano,
it would give them no discomfort, while
on the forehead of the educated
artist beads of perspiration would
stand out as result of the narrowing
dissonance While an amateur was per-
forming on piano and had just struck
the wrong chord, John Sebastian Bach,
| the immortal composer, entered the room
and the amateur rose in embarrassment,
and Bach rushed past the host, who
| stepped forward to greet him, and before
the keyboard had stopped vibrating put
his adroit hand upon the keys and
changed the painful inharmony into
glorious cadence Then Bach turned and
gave salutation to the host who had in
vited him.
But the worst of all discords is moral
discord. If society and the world are
painfully discordant to imperfect man,
what must they be to perfect God
People try to define what sin is. 1t seems
to me that sin is getting out of harmony
with God, disagreement with His holi-
ness, with His purity, with His love,
with His commands, our will clashing
with His will, the finite dashing against
the infinite, the frail against the puissant,
the created against the Creator. If a
thousand musicians, with flute and cor
net piston, and trumpet, and violoncello,
and hautbois, and trombone, and all the
wind and stringed instruments that ever
gathered in Dusseldorf jubilee should
resolve that they would play out of tune
and put concord to the rack, and make
the place wild with shrieking, and graf
ing, and rasping sounds, they could not
make such pandemonium as that which
RACES in a sinful soul when God listens
to the play of it's thoughts, passions and
emotions-discord lifelong discord, mad
dening discord. The world pays more
for discord than it does for consonance.
High prices have been paid for music.
One man gave two hundred and twenty
five dollars to hear the Swedish
songtress in New York, and another
six hundred and twenty-five dollars
to hear her in Boston, and another six
hundred and fifty dollars to hear her in
Providence. Fabulous prices have been
paid for sweet sounds, but far more has
been paid for discord. The Crimean
war cost one billion seven hundred mil
lion dollars, and our American civil war
over nine and a-half billion dollars, and
the war debts of professed Christian ma
tons are about fifteen billion dollars
The world pays for this red ticket, which
admits it to the saturnalia of broken
bones, and death agonies, and destroyed
cities, and plowed graves, and crushed
hearts, any amount of money Satan asks.
Discord Discord
But I have to tell you that the song
that the morning stars sang together
at the laying Of the worlds corner
stone is to be resumed again Mo-
Zart's greatest overture was COM
posed one night when he was several
times overpowered with sleep, and